what does someclass.init thing do

Question

class subclass(superclass):
    def __init__(self, arg1, arg2):
        superclass.__init__(self, blah1, blah2)

What is the purpose of using superclass.__init__(self, blah1, blah2)? I am a little confused regarding whether to use the last line or not while inheriting a superclass.

Depends on the superclass. It may very well do nothing at all. — Wooble, Jul 26 '13 at 18:15
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101214203620AAooELF — zod, Jul 26 '13 at 18:16
Yes, it depends on whether the superclass's `__init__()` function does something you want to do. — Crowman, Jul 26 '13 at 18:23
passing `self` to `__init__` of superclass would not be needed [ wrong, even ] as it gets passed implicitly. — ersran9, Jul 26 '13 at 18:26
In my opinion superclass's `__init__` is used to define arguments which are to defined as same as in superclass. Am I right? Further what is the use of `class subclass(superclass)` exactly. I mean what things does subclass inherit from superclass using this? Does it inherit function, arguments or what? — Lokesh, Jul 26 '13 at 18:33
you should read http://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/classes.html - that should cover most of your questions. — ersran9, Jul 26 '13 at 18:34
@ersran9: You have to explicitly pass `self` to a base class constructor, see: http://docs.python.org/2/reference/datamodel.html#object.__init__ — Crowman, Jul 26 '13 at 18:37
@PaulGriffiths Thank you for taking time to link it - clearly I was wrong. — ersran9, Jul 26 '13 at 18:41

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 26 '13 at 18:35

superclass.__init__(self,*args,**kwargs)

is essentially equivelent to

super(Myclass,self).__init__(*args,**kwargs)

that is it calls the supers constructor. but it skips the rest of the inheritance stack (I think super() bubbles or something... most of the time i use the first method)

**this is probably an over simplification

what does someclass.__init__ thing do

1 Answers1

what does someclass.init thing do